John Kelso

Career diplomat John Kelso has been named Australia's consul general in Los Angeles, Australian foreign affairs officials said Wednesday. He succeeds Basil Teasey, who had been in the post since 1984. Kelso served as Australia's ambassador to Brazil in the 1970s. Since 1984 he has been his country's ambassador to Austria as well as resident representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations office in Vienna.

Career diplomat John Kelso has been named Australia's consul general in Los Angeles, Australian foreign affairs officials said Wednesday. He succeeds Basil Teasey, who had been in the post since 1984. Kelso served as Australia's ambassador to Brazil in the 1970s. Since 1984 he has been his country's ambassador to Austria as well as resident representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations office in Vienna.

The sad fate of Crystal Cove is yet another example of how bureaucracy is spoiling the once idyllic life in Southern California. This picturesque community will give way to commerce, i.e, super-modern rentals, concession stands with junk food, parking lots, etc. John Kelso-Shelton states that not developing Crystal Cove into a commercial enterprise is a betrayal of public trust. We have heard doublespeak before. SADI HAYASHI Van Nuys

Australian-American Council: A group of business people is forming an organization for Australian and American entrepreneurs next month in hopes of increasing U.S.-Australian trade. The group, Costa Mesa-based Australian American Network Council, will be Orange County's first Australian-American business organization. The council already has 30 members--two-thirds are Australian expatriates and a third are Americans, said John W. Pearce, the council's president.

The unfortunate controversy surrounding the personal comments of a medical adviser to the Australian Olympic basketball team do not reflect the views of the Australian Olympic Committee or the Australian government. Australia will not boycott the Barcelona Olympics. We will field a basketball team and we hope to have an opportunity to play the U.S. I am deeply concerned that Australia's high standing may have been unfairly tarnished by the incautious remarks of one person. Of course, all Australians are entitled to express their own opinions.

The article "Trading Places" (Opinion, Dec.11) by Tad Szulc on the inconclusive outcome of the mid-term review of the Uruguay round of international trade negotiations quoted Michael Duffy, Australia's minister for trade negotiations as warning that "we're staring down the barrel of an all-out trade war." Agricultural exporting countries like Australia will be the ones to suffer most from any confrontation between major trading groups, particularly the North Americans and the Europeans.

--Fatima Amatulla walked into a Society National Bank branch in Cleveland dressed in a long black dress and a veil, but bank security officers forced her to leave before she could pay a $92 telephone bill. "I told (the guard) we dress like this all the time, and I told him that I just wanted to pay a bill, not cash a check," Amatulla said. "But I guess fear of what you can't see makes them jittery. I wonder if they treat all (Muslim) sisters with veiled faces like that."

Orange County military families with loved ones in the Persian Gulf have been left exhausted and confused by developments in Washington, Moscow and Baghdad, which at once seem to promise of peace but speak of war. Most families, however, seem resigned that a ground war is necessary and will happen soon. "It's like a bad tooth. Pull it out and get it over with," said Anita Millhollin, a Garden Grove woman whose 30-year-old son, Timothy, is on the front lines with the Marines in Saudi Arabia.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" boasts 2 million hardback copies in print after spending three years on national bestseller lists, but unless you already knew those facts you'd never guess them from the uninvolving film that Clint Eastwood has cobbled together from bits and pieces of the original story. It's not necessary to have read John Berendt's nonfiction book about a murder trial set amid the brandy-soaked decadence of Savannah, Ga.

Alternatives to hospital care for the nation's growing AIDS population are urgently needed and may provide more compassionate treatment and be less expensive to the nation's health care system, a congressional panel was told Wednesday. "For the most part, AIDS patients are not getting the care and services they need," said Drew E. Altman, vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation of Princeton.

Renewed hopes for world peace and the easing of global tensions gave more than 400 party-goers reason to celebrate at Saturday's eighth annual International Protocol Ball. The International Visitors and Protocol Foundation of Orange County's salute to more than 40 members of the Consular Corps took place in the posh ballroom of the Hyatt Regency Irvine.